


In the Shadow of the Steeple

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: AND IIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUUU, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, And Failing Miserably, And It Got More Angsty Than Intended, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Porn, Anyway Somehow Politics Got Involved a Bit, Bodyguard AU, Confession: I Have Never Seen 'The Bodyguard', Depression, God I Hope I Did This Justice, Honestly the Assassin Plot is Just So I Have an Excuse to Make Them Share a Hotel Room, I Only Know the Song, I Swear Good Things Happen Too, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It's Stuck in All Your Heads Now You're Welcome, M/M, Mentions of Gun Violence, Mentions of Racism, Mentions of School Shooting, Messy Messy Boys, One Broken Messy Person and One Slightly Less Messy and Broken Person, Oops, Past Child Abuse, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, That's What This is All About Folks, The Puppy Gets a Puppy, Unstoppable Destructive Force Meets Sassy Stubborn Immoveable Object, mentions of child death, trying not to fall in love, you know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 11:28:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18893707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: Garcia Flynn is hired to bodyguard country music star Wyatt Logan. This goes about as well as can be expected, which is to say, duck and cover.





	In the Shadow of the Steeple

Flynn didn’t want to take this job.

Correction.

He was _loathe_ to take this job.

“Christopher.” He spoke with a very patient tone of voice, he felt, given the circumstances. “I am Croatian.”

“You’re American.”

“Through citizenship, yes, but I grew up in _Croatia_. Half the time people assume I’m Russian. I’m also _not straight_.”

“And?” Denise Christopher raised an eyebrow at him from across the desk. “I highly doubt that the subject of your sexuality will come up.”

Flynn took a deep breath. Christopher had been good to him. She’d given him a job after Lorena and Iris, after he’d been knocked for six in the worst way, and Michelle, Denise's wife, had nursed him through about three hangovers after he’d gotten absolutely wasted at their place a few times. He owed it to her to be patient.

But boy, was she testing that patience.

“That tractor-humping jackass stands for literally everything that I’m against,” Flynn pointed out. “He sings about a version of America that doesn’t even exist, he’s the poster boy for toxic masculinity.”

Denise sighed. “Flynn. Listen to me. I need you. _You_ , and nobody else, on this detail.”

“Because some spoiled country boy got a few death threats?”

“Yes. That is exactly why.” Denise’s voice hardened. “Think about it. Wyatt Logan is a hack country singer from the post-9/11 generation. He sings about fuck yeah America. How is it going to look if he’s assassinated? How long do you think in this political climate do you think it will take the general public to claim it was to silence him?”

“He’s a country music singer, he’s not a politician. I get that art is important, but…”

“He’s a public figure. People care about those. They project onto celebrities, they feel as if they know them personally.” Denise leaned forward. “Now, think about what happens if this poster kid for white America is saved by a man who is nothing like him. A man who is the poster boy for what America really is. A minority.”

Flynn saw her point, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “I don’t want to be used for a political agenda.”

“And I don’t like that my company is being hired to guard this asshole,” Denise replied. “But I’m not going to let this opportunity slip through our fingers.”

“You should’ve gone into politics,” Flynn muttered. “Fine. I’ll do it. But I’m getting a raise.”

“Fair enough.” Denise paused. “Oh, and one more thing. I’ve been given strict instructions by his manager.”

“Which are?”

“Don’t leave her alone with him or she’ll kill him before the assassin even gets close.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn liked Jessica Logan immediately.

He had, in all honestly, tried to be a bit of a dick. “Why’d you keep your name after your divorce?” he asked.

Jess, however, was not the manager of a superstar country singer for nothing. “My original last name is like Nazis.”

“In what way.”

“It should be forced to die out.” Jess propped her feet up on her desk. “Well, I like your attitude.”

“I’ve been told I have one.”

“Yeah, and I like it.” The corner of her mouth slid upward. She was a lovely looking woman, cute and sexy at the same time, with a slightly turned up nose, blonde hair, round cheeks and a mouth that knew how to smirk. The powder blue suit she wore was paired with a matching blouse that had pink rosebuds on it, adding some flair. “Wyatt could use someone who stands up to him. He’s a handful, you know.”

“I’ve read the tabloids.” Flynn straightened up a little. “I will need to know the full extent of his issues, Ms. Logan.”

“Jess, please.”

“Jess. Is Wyatt’s drinking problem as bad as, better than, or worse than rumor says? Does he have any girlfriends, does he tend to fuck groupies, does he tend to fuck women who have boyfriends? Does he get into bar fights or is it just when he’s being jealous over his wife?”

“It’s easy to do homework when your client is so high profile but congratulations anyway on doing the research.” Jess tilted her head to the side. “You don’t have a very high opinion of him, do you?”

“Should I?”

“No. I think you should feel sorry for him. I do.”

Flynn snorted. “Why?”

“Because he could have been so much more than he became.” Jess shrugged. “Anyway. He has a drinking problem but he never drinks before shows. It’s in between shows when he’s alone and we’re moving to the next location that it becomes a problem. He doesn’t sleep with women who are married or have boyfriends but other than that it’s anything goes. He’s moved past the anger stage of grief and is now in depression, but don’t hold your breath for him to get to acceptance.”

Flynn nodded. “Anything else I should know about?”

Jess shook her head, then paused. “You have to understand… it’s not that Wyatt doesn’t take these threats seriously. It’s that he doesn’t care.”

“Is he seeing someone for all… this?”

“I dragged him to couples’ therapy for months. He was awful. You want to try and get him to see someone, be my guest. I’m one thing and one thing only and that’s his professional manager. It’s not my job to get him back on the wagon. If he was ever on the wagon in the first place.”

Flynn nodded. “I guess I should meet him, then.”

Jess got a gleeful gleam in her eyes. “Oh, this will be fun.”

 

* * *

 

To say their first meeting went poorly was… kind of like saying World War II was an argument.

Flynn had read the death threats. They were full of details that were concerning in their accuracy about Wyatt’s concerts and their set up, and came regularly, which was why Jess had called in a proper bodyguard.

“Every celebrity gets a nasty letter now and again,” she said. “But when it becomes a pattern, and they’ve got knowledge like this…”

The letters rambled on a lot, as the letters of people completely off their rocker and obsessed with one particular subject tended to, but they talked a lot about a betrayal, about being lied to, about Wyatt turning on them.

“Anyone in particular that Wyatt stabbed in the back?” Flynn asked.

Jess rolled her eyes. “A lot of people are pissed at him. You can interview all of them. But nobody who was actively betrayed, or at least I don’t think.”

“What about the drummer who quit a couple months ago?”

“Dave? Oh, no, he’s a sweetheart. He wanted to get more into the jazz scene. He and Wyatt were close, they parted on good terms.”

“The new drummer? Rufus Carlin?”

“Gets annoyed at Wyatt and imagines throwing him out a window, same as the rest of us, but nothing extreme.”

Flynn employed his favorite strategy of getting people to talk: he brought along Jiya.

Jiya Marri was a former teacher, now applying to get her PhD from CalTech. She wasn’t exactly bubbly, and could be abrasive and to the point, but she was damn good at getting people to open up to her.

Even better, she wasn’t connected to anyone. Nobody knew she was Flynn’s closest friend—something in between a sister, a daughter, and a best friend to him. She was just another fan.

“I got the drummer’s number,” Jiya told him. “But no lead on who’d have a grudge among his close acquaintances.”

So it was probably a fan, as Flynn had originally suspected.

Which led him to the present moment with Logan himself, where they were supposed to meet and he had to tell Logan that he was putting his foot down and not letting him perform at an NRA exposition.

“Oh hey Jess,” Wyatt said when he heard that. He was wearing a pink button-up shirt with the top couple of buttons undone, exposing his throat, along with dark form-fitting jeans.

He was much prettier in person than in his photos, Flynn thought, and then hated himself for thinking that.

“You didn’t tell me Ivan here was going to be the kind of idiot who asked me to cancel my appearances.”

Flynn grit his teeth. “I’ll ignore the blatant racial jab simply because it’s boring in favor of pointing out that when someone is routinely threatening your life, the worst place you could perform is at a big rally where assault rifles are in easy reach.”

“Jesus Christ.” Wyatt looked at Jess. “Have you seen his list of demands? We have to share joint hotel rooms?”

“Wyatt, your life is in danger,” Jess replied, clearly not having this garbage. “Try and act like a reasonable human being for once.”

“I’d tell you to listen to your ex-wife,” Flynn noted, “but if you were in any habit of that, she wouldn’t be your ex.”

Wyatt whipped back around to glare at Flynn. “Hire someone else,” he told Jess, still glaring at Flynn. “I’m not putting up with this bullshit.”

“I gotta say, if this is how you talk to the guy whose job it is to keep you alive, I’m surprised you don’t have every waiter in town lined up to stab you _Murder on the Orient Express_ -style.”

“Okay, here’s how it goes,” Wyatt snapped. “You follow me, and you don’t say a goddamn word to me. And I’ll just ignore you, and it’ll all be fine. Sound like a plan?”

“Just fine by me.”

“Great,” Jess said. “And when I walk in and find your bodies in a double homicide I’ll get both your personal effects and everybody wins.”

 

* * *

 

It was in Chicago that the truce started.

Flynn had been doing a great job of tuning out Wyatt and focusing on safety detail, while Wyatt had been alternating between ignoring him and poking at Flynn with jabs that Wyatt probably figured were hurtful but weren’t anything Flynn hadn’t heard a million times before.

But in Chicago…

Chicago was the hotel room trashed, tissues and ripped up paper and clothes and bedsheets everywhere. Chicago was six beers in and red-rimmed eyes.

Chicago was where Flynn walked in and found Wyatt on the floor, back against the bed, guitar in his lap, trying to pluck out a song.

_Don’t you cry, don’t you cry darling,_

_The stars are coming, coming to take me home._

_Whoa, don’t you cry,_

_The blood is the softest bed I’ve ever known._

Flynn took the guitar out of Wyatt’s hands. Those weren’t just heavy lyrics, those were dangerous lyrics. “You’ll carry a tune better when you’re sober.”

Wyatt laughed a little hysterically. “Of course you’re here. Where’s Jess, I need Jess.”

“Jess isn’t here to clean up your messes anymore.”

Wyatt looked up at him. “You know I dreamt once that she died?”

Flynn set the guitar aside. “Right. Let’s get you in bed.”

“You’re not my babysitter.”

“And yet.”

Flynn worked on hauling Wyatt up, but Wyatt played deadweight and kept talking. “We were driving from somewhere, y’know how in dreams you always start in the middle, right? And we were driving and arguing, and she got out of the car. And I knew it was my fault but I kept driving anyway. And then I tried to look for her, but she was gone. I kept yelling for her and she was just gone, gone… and I knew she was dead, I knew it, and then I woke up…” Wyatt yanked weakly at Flynn. “Why are you up there? Come down here.”

“How about I bring you up here instead?”

Wyatt laughed hysterically again. “If that ain’t a metaphor.” His Texan drawl came out when he was drunk. “You can’t tell anyone about that song, okay?”

“Only if you promise not to do anything like in those lyrics.”

Wyatt tilted his head. “Why, you’d cry at my funeral?”

“No, but I think half of Texas would.”

“Fuck Texas. And the rest of ‘em. The real people won’t be there.” Wyatt paused. “If I die, you can’t let them bury me next to my dad.” Another pause. “It’s his anniversary today. The day he died.”

Ahh.

Flynn sat down next to Wyatt. “I hear he got you your start.”

Wyatt snorted. “Yeah. Asshole. Y’know I didn’t want to be a singer. I wanted to be a mechanic.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He used to… my dad would get real mad and he’d take me out to the backwoods and drive the car around and around like a fuckin’ maniac until he broke it. And then he’d make me fix it. Sit down with a six pack and watch. And we couldn’t go home until I fixed it.”

Flynn knew this was dangerous, but despite himself… he couldn’t leave a lonely soul to wallow in its misery like this. “My dad was boring. He just used a belt.”

Wyatt drunkenly, lopsidedly tilted his head up at Flynn. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I… I know I fucked up,” Wyatt whispered. “With Jess. I’m not saying it wasn’t me. But I wonder if—if it’s ‘cause he broke something inside me and now I can’t be good for anyone.”

Flynn rubbed at his wedding ring. “I was good for someone. Or I like to think I was.”

“What happened?”

“She died.”

“Oh. Fuck I’m sorry, people must ask you that all the time and you gotta keep telling them, it’s like going through it all over again.”

That was… surprisingly thoughtful. “It was a school shooting. She volunteered at the elementary school that my little girl attended.”

“Jesus fuck,” Wyatt slurred, his pretty eyes going wide. “Did your…”

“No. She would’ve… she was five, at the time. She would be almost eight, now.”

“But you’re still a bodyguard.”

Flynn shrugged. “It’s what I’m good at. And maybe I can stop more wackjobs with access to assault rifles.”

“So that’s why you…”

“Yeah.”

“I should do a better job. About listening to you.” Wyatt paused. “I’m shit at apologizing. Ask Jess. But I’m sorry.”

“I’ll accept it as a marvelous first try.”

Wyatt snorted. “How did… I mean, sorry, I shouldn’t ask.”

Flynn sighed. “I was investigating an alt-right group known as Rittenhouse at the time. Next thing I knew one of their members was attacking the school where my family was.” He paused. “Jiya, she was one of the teachers. Taught kindergarten, taught Iris, my daughter. That’s how we met, at a support group.

“I know that you don’t explicitly write lyrics that say _you can’t take my guns from me_ but when your supporters show up wearing MAGA hats… you can see why I’m not a fan of them. Or of your music. Or country music in general. The whole ‘I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free’ and all that shit. It’s nationalism as a form of music.”

Wyatt looked down at his hands. “You must really hate me.”

Flynn sighed. “I don’t hate you. I hate what you choose to stand for.”

“I do too.”

Flynn stared at him. “What?”

Wyatt gestured for the guitar. Unsure why he was complying, Flynn handed it back to him. “You heard of Woodie Guthrie?”

“…no?”

“Father of folk music, man. He was real country music. What it’s supposed to be. Do you know the song _This Land is Your Land_?”

“The one that goes ‘this land was made for you and me’?”

Wyatt snorted. “Yeah. There are lyrics nobody ever sings. Okay my voice is shit but…” He cleared his throat. “ _Was a high wall there, that tried to stop me, a sign was painted said: private property. But the back side it didn’t say nothing—God blessed America for me._ ”

His voice was shit with the time of night and all the drinking, but emotion, true emotion, thrummed in it the way it never did onstage.

“ _One bright sunny morning, in the shadow of the steeple, by the Relief Office, I saw my people, as they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me_.”

Flynn stared. “Nope, never heard those lyrics.”

Wyatt dropped the guitar into his lap. “Yeah it was… he was being sarcastic. Y’know? Because Irving Berlin, he’d just written this super popular song called _God Bless America_. And Guthrie wrote his song to respond. But everyone ignores those lyrics and just uses it… the whole golden valley bullshit to act like… like we own this land.” He looked up at Flynn. “You ever know some stuff is wrong but you also don’t know what right is anymore?”

“I’m not philosophizing with you at one in the morning.”

Wyatt listed into Flynn like a ship in a storm. “Y’know what I hate?”

“What.”

“That I wish he’d died sooner.” Wyatt’s voice was a whisper. “If he’d died sooner, I could’ve been a car mechanic.”

Flynn wasn’t sure what to say to that, but it didn’t matter. Wyatt was already asleep.

 

* * *

 

It was about two weeks after that he found Wyatt playing on his guitar again, but this time sober.

“I’m here to clear your…” Flynn paused as Wyatt held up a finger, hummed something, and changed a riff, playing it over again.

Wyatt then scribbled down in a notebook and looked up. “What?”

“I was just going to say I cleared your schedule.”

“Ah.” Wyatt’s cheeks got a little pink. “Thanks.”

Flynn nodded, and turned to go.

“Wait, wait, wait.”

He turned back and Wyatt cleared his throat. “Could you… test listen to this for me?”

Flynn didn’t see the harm in it, ignoring the odd twist in his gut as he came to sit down on the edge of the bed and listen.

Wyatt sang softly, his voice a little rough. “ _I’m searching for the ghost of a man I used to know…_ ”

Flynn couldn’t tell specifically what it was about, but the song was haunting, and tugged at something inside of him—made him think about who he’d been before losing Lorena and Iris, and oddly enough made him think about his mother.

The chorus was _I have a promise to keep, I have a promise to keep, I have a promise to keep, and the woods, are dark, and deep_ , with each part of making Wyatt’s voice drop lower and lower until he was pushing the bottom of his range on the final two words.

“Is that a reference to Frost?” Flynn asked, when Wyatt was finished.

Wyatt nodded. “My grandpops would read his stuff to me.” He set the guitar down.

“Your song’s about him, isn’t it?”

“…yeah. That obvious?”

“Not until you mentioned him. It’s a good song. I felt… it made me think about myself.”

Wyatt looked up at him through his lashes, then flicked his gaze back down, leaving Flynn feeling oddly heated. “Yeah, well. He’s the reason I really let myself keep going on this, no matter what my dad did… if it’d just been my dad I never would’ve kept this career going. I would’ve… I don’t know, run away and joined the army or something. But Gramps was so proud of me.”

“That’s the woods then. Your career. And the promise is to your grandfather.”

“Hit the nail on the head.”

Flynn took a chance. “If your grandfather loved you, though, he wouldn’t want you to keep doing something that made you unhappy.”

Wyatt looked up at him, startled, and Flynn thought Wyatt might say something more, but then the hair and makeup people were coming in and Flynn was shooed out of the way.

 

* * *

 

“Do you write all your songs in this notebook?” Flynn asked.

They were in Birmingham and he had to talk about something or he’d go out and punch the first white man he saw and that wasn’t going to be good for anyone’s tempers.

The summer heat wasn’t helping much, either.

Wyatt looked over at him from the bathroom where he was shaving and saw the notebook in Flynn’s hand. “Yeah.”

“Can I flip through?”

“Yeah.”

Flynn started looking through, reading snatches here and there. He couldn’t read music for shit but the lyrics stood out to him. One seemed to be about Jess:

_Trying to put it back together_

_And the pieces of the puzzle_

_Are all made up of broken glass_

Others, Flynn had no idea. There were just lines like, _my heart got ate some time ago_ that stood out to him, spoke to something in him in a way that Wyatt’s other lyrics didn’t.

He kept flipping through, but he couldn’t find all of Wyatt’s songs that he sang for his albums and concerts. “Where are your published songs?”

“I didn’t write those.”

“What?” Flynn looked up.

Wyatt shrugged. “My dad wrote the first ones. Then after he died my team just hires other songwriters. I’ve never actually sang any of my songs for an audience.”

He closed the door then, because Wyatt had a hang up about changing in front of Flynn, even though Flynn was literally almost never paying attention, and Flynn went back to reading.

When Wyatt emerged, Flynn looked up again. “You should sing these.”

Wyatt froze, t-shirt sticking to his damp skin, his hair falling into his face. That did… bad things to Flynn and he glanced away, away from the hollow of Wyatt’s throat and casual splay of his legs as he rested back against the desk. “I should sing… no. No, uh, no I don’t do that.”

“But you should. This stuff, this is art. Not… all that.”

“You saying my songs are shit?”

“Yeah.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes. “I can’t just—switching all my songs, doing new ones, a new image, it… no. No, nobody would stand for it I can’t. I can’t fuckin’ do that.”

“But this is what you want to actually write and perform.” Flynn stood up and waved the notebook. “This is, not whatever the shit—”

“That whatever the shit made me millions, okay?”

“And it’s made you miserable.”

“I’m not just me, Flynn!” Wyatt’s voice got rough and cracked a little. “I’m not a person anymore, I’m a brand!”

“Your brand can change.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“The person in this notebook?” Flynn dared to take a step closer. “That guy knows he was obsessed with Jess and needs to let go. He knows that he’s unhappy. He knows that who he pretends to be and who the world says he should be isn’t who he actually is or wants to be. And I think that person is worth sharing.”

“And I think that person needs to be on fucking lockdown,” Wyatt shot back. “What do you think’s going to happen, huh? That I’m gonna be fucking celebrated? Oh, yeah, I fucked up my marriage, I was a fuckin’ shit husband, I drink too much, aww I got Daddy issues, you think the world’s gonna respect that? Listen to that? That’s not what people want, I will be eaten alive.”

“And you’ll be _free_.” Flynn didn’t know when he’d gotten so close to Wyatt, but they were now standing inches apart, Wyatt’s chest heaving and his eyes dangerously bright. “I know what it feels like, okay? I know what it feels like.”

Wyatt’s laugh was scathing. “You and I are nothing alike.”

He shoved his way past Flynn.

 

* * *

 

Flynn had to say this for Jess: she was more than willing to let him rant to her for an hour over drinks.

She laughed when he was finished, to his surprise. “What?”

“Nothing. You just seemed surprised there was an argument.”

“I’m not surprised we fought. I’m surprised he’s such a fucking idiot. He’s not as much of an asshole as he seems to be but he’s determined to act like one and for what? Why even show me all those songs if he’s got no intention of ever performing them? He doesn’t even like me all that much.”

Jess shook her head. “Oh, he likes you a lot.”

“How do you know that?”

Jess downed a shot. “Because the only person he used to let read his songs was me.”

 

* * *

 

They were coming out of the record store where Wyatt had been doing a signing when it happened.

There was the sound of a bullet whizzing just past Wyatt’s head, Flynn grabbed him, tackled him down, everyone screamed, there was chaos—

“Fuck,” he snarled. Fuck, that was way too close.

Wyatt seemed merely dazed. “Did you have to tackle me onto concrete?” he asked.

Flynn stared down at him. “You do realize you almost got murdered, right?”

“And?”

Flynn hauled him to his feet. “Okay, pretty boy, we’re getting you to the hotel safely and then we’re getting you a goddamn therapist.”

His threat had been empty—he couldn’t make his client get so much as a glass of water if his client didn’t want one—but Wyatt was disturbingly calm about the whole thing. He answered the police report with a nonchalance that scared Flynn.

It made Flynn think about the song lyrics he’d heard. _The blood is the softest bed I’ve ever known._

He spoke with Jess about it. “He’ll listen to you if you make him go.”

There was a slight scuffle over the phone as Jess rearranged some things on her desk. “I dragged him to therapy at least three times. Didn’t work.”

“I can’t ask him.”

“Maybe it would work, coming from a new person. Coming from you. And like I said, he likes you.”

“He doesn’t like me.”

He could hear Jess smirking. “Right, and I’m a virgin.”

Flynn called and made an appointment for someone local, and then called the local animal shelter. It was a bit of a risk, but, if the therapy didn’t work… getting a cat had helped him, back in the day.

“Where are we going?” Wyatt asked.

“I made you an appointment.”

“Oh, hell no,” Wyatt said as they walked into the building.

“Hell yes,” Flynn retorted. He walked up to the receptionist. “Hi, he has an appointment, two p.m. under the name Logan?”

“I’m going to get you back for this,” Wyatt vowed as he was led into the therapist’s office.

“And yet I don’t see you running for the door,” Flynn replied.

Wyatt was rather subdued afterwards, his eyes rimmed red. “Can we just go back to the hotel?” he asked quietly as they got into the car and Flynn made a right turn instead of a left.

“One more stop. I promise it’ll be short.”

Wyatt’s eyes got oddly bright and hopeful as Flynn pulled into the shelter parking lot. “Are—what are we doing here?”

“You’ll see.”

He led Wyatt inside, where a volunteer took their information, gave them badges, and led them through the back into a small room.

There were soft blankets and toys on the floor, a water bowl, and a large puppy bed.

“We’ll bring her right in,” the volunteer said.

Wyatt glanced over at Flynn, then away. “My dad never let me get a pet,” he mumbled.

The volunteer returned with a big fluffy white-and-brown bundle in her arms. She gently laid the bundle in Wyatt’s lap.

The bundle turned its big bright eyes on Wyatt and wuffled.

Wyatt made a tiny noise and gently pet the puppy, his hands shaking.

“She’s a St. Bernard,” Flynn said quietly.

The puppy put her paws on Wyatt’s chest and licked his face. Wyatt wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her gently, burying his face in her fur. “Can I really keep her?”

Flynn nodded. “I talked with Jess.”

Wyatt looked up at the volunteer, as if she might look at him and decide that he wasn’t the sort of person she wanted to give a helpless animal to after all.

The volunteer smiled. “She’s all yours if you want her.”

Wyatt clutched at the puppy, apparently appalled at the suggestion that he wasn’t already in love with this tiny soft creature.

They paid the adoption fee, and bought food, and bowls, and toys, and a carrier, and blankets and a bed.

Not that they used the carrier. Wyatt held her all the way home.

“Her name is Denver,” he announced. “Like John Denver.”

“I like it.”

Wyatt held her close, talking softly in baby babble at her, and let Denver chew on his fingers. She was going to be spoiled rotten, Flynn could already tell.

He was sure there were worse fates for a dog. And besides—that lit-up look didn’t leave Wyatt’s face all day.

“He can’t leave, now,” he told Jess later that night. “If he leaves, he’ll be leaving his dog. Even if nothing else loves you and nothing else is worth staying for, your pet will miss you. You have to stay for your pet.”

“If you say so,” Jess replied.

Flynn looked at Wyatt sleeping with Denver curled up in his arms despite Flynn insisting that the hotel would kill them if the management found out a dog had been in the bed. Wyatt had spent half an hour cooing to her about how she could sleep with him always, giving her kisses on her soft puppy ears. “Yeah, I do say so.”

 

* * *

 

Things got easier after that, a bit.

Wyatt did phone therapy calls, or Skyped, and he played with Denver and potty trained her and taught her to sit and stay and roll over and shake paws. Flynn and Rufus had to cajole him into practice with the rest of the band, and even then Denver sat nearby, apparently unbothered by the loud noises—although she did try to attack and chew the amp cords.

Luckily all she had to do was turn her big brown eyes on people and everyone immediately forgave her all manner of sins.

Wyatt’s next concert, he was more upbeat, making faces at Rufus and bouncing around backstage. Denver couldn’t be at the concert, too much noise and people, and Wyatt was eager to get back to her afterwards.

“God, I’m starving, are you starving?” Wyatt grabbed some ice cream from the hotel lobby convenience store and brought it up to their joined bedrooms. “Hey baby girl, did you miss me?”

Denver gave a huge whine, like yes she had missed him, she was abandoned to the wolves without him, she’d been convinced he was never coming back, and Flynn had to take the ice cream out of Wyatt’s hands so that Wyatt could cuddle Denver and tell her what a good baby girl she was.

“You love that dog more than anything,” Flynn teased, grabbing spoons. Wyatt had gotten rocky road. Flynn had stuck with mint chip.

“Don’t listen to him,” Wyatt cooed. “He’s jealous.”

“I am not jealous of a dog.”

“What, scared she’ll be my new favorite?”

“Oh, does that mean I’m your current favorite?”

Wyatt looked terrified, like he wanted to maybe take it back, his cheeks flushing. Then he stood up, Denver in his arms, and walked over to join Flynn at the table. “Yes.”

“Good to know. I thought you were barely tolerating me.”

“You grew on me.”

“It was the dog that did it, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not sure what it was,” Wyatt said honestly. He sat down and accepted the ice cream and spoon, eating as Denver tried to lick it away from him. “No, chocolate is bad for puppies, stop that.”

“You’re not my least favorite person, if I’m being honest,” Flynn said.

Wyatt chuckled. “I deserve that. I was an asshole to you.” He paused. “I’m—sorry. You’re really—you don’t have to do any of the shit you’re doing for me.”

Flynn shrugged. “I wouldn’t. Normally. But there’s more to you than meets the eye, Logan. If you just let it out and stop showing everyone what a toxic pile of shit looks like.”

“Thanks, you really know how to make a guy feel good about himself.”

“I thought you valued my honesty?”

“Nah, let’s go back to the part where you flatter me.”

“Was there ever a part where I flattered you?”

“You could start now.” Wyatt rested his elbow on the table and then put his chin on his fist, batting his eyelashes. “Tell me I’m pretty.”

Flynn snorted with laughter. “Yeah, pretty obnoxious.”

“Hey, we can’t all be walking sex models.”

“You think I’m a walking sex model?”

Wyatt shoved a huge bite of ice cream into his mouth instead of answering.

Flynn felt his face heating up. He’d never been good at the whole… flirting, showing interest in someone thing. Lorena had told him that his signature move was to be slower than a glacier and trip over his own feet.

And he really shouldn’t be flirting with a client. But Wyatt was a soft, broken puppy underneath it all, and had a habit of looking up at Flynn coyly through his lashes, and he was trying to get better and trying to find his way out of the woods he was in, and every night the last week they’d stayed up late talking about their pasts and their shitty dads and shooting the shit, and…

“You’re not too bad yourself, you know,” Flynn managed.

“What every man wants to hear.”

“Would you rather I said you were too pretty for your own good?” Flynn asked, a hint of a growl entering his voice.

Wyatt’s cheeks got pink and he fumbled with the spoon, nearly dropping it. “Um, yeah, that works.” He paused. “That the kind of line you use on women?”

“And men. I was always equal opportunity.”

“Yeah. Um. I… it wasn’t something… my dad would’ve literally tanned my hide.”

Flynn nodded. Then paused. “Maybe that’s what the death threats mean.”

“Pardon?” Wyatt looked like his would-be killer was the last thing he wanted to talk about right then. “What did they mean?”

“They talked about how you betrayed them and disappointed them. Maybe it wasn’t personally, since we covered everyone you legitimately hurt. Maybe it’s ideologically. Would anyone know about your bisexuality?”

“I mean… someone could’ve guessed. I’ve tried to be… keep it under wraps. Y’know. Stuck to women. But someone might’ve seen something.”

Flynn nodded. “I’ll talk to my boss in the morning.”

Wyatt looked down at his ice cream like he was considering drowning himself in it. Before he could stop himself, Flynn reached across and wrapped his hand around Wyatt’s wrist. “Hey. We’ll get this asshole, okay? I promise. You’re safe with me.”

Wyatt looked up at him, turning his hand over and clinging to Flynn. “Yeah,” he whispered. “That’s the thing, I feel really safe with you.”

Flynn tried his best to tamp down the warm bubble in his chest.

 

* * *

 

The next evening, Wyatt was drunk.

Sometimes, Flynn wondered why he cared.

Then he took in Wyatt’s sad eyes as he pet Denver and he remembered.

“You need to stop this.” Denver was carefully lifted off of Wyatt’s lap and placed in her doggy bed.

Wyatt tilted his head up at him. “Why?”

“Because we’ll like you a whole lot better if you do.” Flynn helped Wyatt stand up and led him into the bathroom to splash some water on his face.

“What’ll you give me if I stop?”

“I dunno, more ice cream? Seemed to work for you before.”

Wyatt turned around, his face damp, his eyes a little clearer. “What about a kiss?”

Flynn’s stomach just about dropped out, heat spiking in his chest. “What about it?”

“What if…” Wyatt tilted his head. “What if every time I wanted to take a drink but didn’t, you gave me a kiss?”

“I’m not kissing you when you’re drunk like this.”

“But what if I wasn’t drunk?” Wyatt huffed out a soft laugh. “Gotta say it now, right? While the room’s spinning and I can say anything. It all comes out in the wash, room’s a washing machine and I’m coming out in it.”

“You think you’re real funny.”

“I’m hilarious. And drunk. And wanna kiss you.”

“Y’know, this could be called blackmail. Saying you’ll stop drinking if I kiss you,” Flynn noted, raising an eyebrow.

“But you’re smiling.”

It was Flynn’s turn to huff a laugh. “Tell you what.” He reached out and gently pushed the hair off Wyatt’s forehead, making it spike up a bit. “You still want a kiss from me when you’re sober, a deal’s a deal.”

“Deal.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt didn’t mention it in the morning. Or the morning after that. But on the third night, Flynn got a knock on the door that connected their hotel rooms.

Wyatt was wearing a soft gray shirt and dark blue plaid flannel pajama pants, and he looked a wreck. “You said a deal’s a deal, right?” he asked, his voice soft and his eyes big and scared.

Flynn reached out, taking him by the shirt and gently pulling him in. “Yeah. A deal’s a deal.”

He could’ve stopped himself. Could’ve said it was unprofessional, that Denise was going to murder him outright if she found out. But the rules had never been set when it came to Wyatt, to this, to them.

Wyatt grabbed onto Flynn’s shirt like he’d fall to the ground if he didn’t, warm and surprisingly pliant, letting Flynn settle his hands around Wyatt’s hips and hold him still as Flynn slowly looked him over. Not touching anywhere else yet, pulling away when Wyatt tried to lean in, just watching, taking all of him in.

Wyatt gave a small whine of protest. Flynn released his hip and took Wyatt’s chin in his hand instead, tilting Wyatt’s face up. There were only about five inches of difference between the two of them but it felt like so much more right now, Wyatt’s chest pressing against Flynn’s as he breathed harshly, his gazed darting between Flynn’s eyes and his mouth.

Flynn leaned in slowly, slowly enough so that Wyatt could back away if he changed his mind, and then pressed his mouth to Wyatt’s.

Wyatt shuddered, and Flynn felt the sweep of Wyatt’s lashes against his cheek as Wyatt closed his eyes—and then one or both of them shifted, and all he could think was _soft_.

Flynn started to pull back but Wyatt leaned forward. “I wanted more than one drink,” he whispered, rushed, like a confession.

“How many drinks did you want?”

“…a lot?”

Flynn wrapped his arm around Wyatt’s waist and kissed him again, again, again, until Wyatt was sagging in his arms and clinging tightly and Flynn got to taste him, got to feel each moan and draw it out and swallow it. Wyatt clawed at him a little and oh, this was a bad idea, this was a very bad idea professionally, personally, and possibly ethically, and Flynn prided himself on being cautious and respectful and—

And Wyatt made a _noise_ and rolled his hips against Flynn’s and well, there went all common sense.

“You know having sex with me can’t get rid of your addiction problem,” Flynn muttered even as he walked Wyatt backwards to the bed.

“Maybe not, pretty sure being with you just adds to my sins.”

“If you spout some homophobic—” He shoved Wyatt back down onto the bed and oh, Wyatt liked a little manhandling if that whimper was any indication.

“I was trying to say…” Wyatt gestured at him. “You look like sin, I don’t even know, you’re hot, okay, please fuck me.”

Flynn climbed onto the bed after him. “Then how about you show me how much you want it, hmm?”

“Jesus fuck,” Wyatt swore hoarsely, yanking his shirt off over his head—or starting to, before Flynn clamped down on his wrists.

“No. I get to undress you. You get to beg me.”

Wyatt swallowed hard. “I—yes, please?”

“That’s a good start.” Flynn had been submissive with Lorena, had wanted her to take charge with things, so he wasn’t quite sure where this whole dominant aspect was coming out with Wyatt. But then, a lot of things were different with Wyatt. “I’m sure you can do better.”

“Please, please, _please_ fuck me.”

“Mm, why should I?”

“Because I’m sick and tired of jerking off in the shower thinking about you, genius,” Wyatt snapped.

“We’ll work on the bratty attitude.” Flynn yanked Wyatt’s shirt off and then pressed his hand down on Wyatt’s sternum, pinning him to the bed. “Be good and don’t squirm.”

“Or what, you’ll spank me?”

“Don’t tempt me.” Flynn undid Wyatt’s pants and yanked those down too, then set his mouth to all that warm skin.

Wyatt moaned, jerking his hips, struggling to keep still. Flynn took his time, leaving soft bitemarks up Wyatt’s chest until he could worry a nipple between his teeth. Wyatt just about arched off the bed at that.

Flynn pinned Wyatt’s wrists to the bed. “I thought I said no squirming?”

“You’re gonna kill me.”

“Hold still.” Flynn slowly made his way back down, paying special attention to the thin skin at Wyatt’s hipbone, and then he mouthed up Wyatt’s cock, just teasing, testing.

Wyatt’s hips jerked as he instinctively tried to get his cock in Flynn’s mouth.

Flynn made direct eye contact, then pulled away, undoing his pants. “Y’know I don’t have to fuck you.” He threw his shirt off and shoved his pants down, drawing his own cock out. “I can just jerk off all over you like this without touching you once and then let you sort yourself out.”

Wyatt’s eyes went black at that. Flynn had the feeling Wyatt liked the idea of Flynn marking him. “I’ll—okay I’m—I’m sorry, I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be so good I won’t move, please, please, I need this so badly, I need you—”

“Shh, okay.” Flynn crawled back on top of him, drawing Wyatt’s hands up above his head and interlocking their fingers, slowly rocking their hips together. Wyatt seemed to go still at once with Flynn’s weight on him, the contact and act of being pinned apparently soothing to him. “I’ll take care of you. You really need this, don’t you sweetheart?”

If Wyatt minded the endearment, then he didn’t say so. Flynn cursed himself internally. The last thing he needed was making this more complicated with stupid feelings. He was in deep enough already.

Wyatt nodded eagerly. Flynn laughed, kissed him again, a little messy this time, a hint of teeth, seeing how Wyatt responded to that. “Hold still for me, and let me blow you as much as I want, and touch you as much as I want, and don’t come, and then I’ll think about fucking you, how’s that sound?”

Wyatt swallowed. Flynn rocked their hips together some more, sliding their cocks together. Wyatt’s eyelids fluttered. “Nngh. Okay, okay, yes, yes that sounds—yeah that sounds really hot, yes please.”

“Good boy.”

Flynn slid down Wyatt’s body as Wyatt gripped the bedsheets until his knuckles went white. He wrapped his hands around Wyatt’s thighs, gently pulling them apart, and nosed around, getting a feel, exploring.

Wyatt gave a delicious little whimper.

Flynn planted openmouthed kisses up Wyatt’s cock, working his way up until he could take just the tip in his mouth and suck.

Wyatt made a noise that sounded like he was viciously biting down on his lip or the inside of his cheek. Flynn pulled away. “I want to hear you,” he ordered, not even really knowing where these orders were coming from, just knowing that it gave him satisfaction like nothing else to see Wyatt following them.

Once he got a nod from Wyatt he moved back down, this time taking in as much of Wyatt’s cock as he could. It had been over a decade since he’d last been with a guy, so he couldn’t do some things as easily as before, but the principles were the same.

And judging by the way Wyatt strained to hold still, he didn’t care jack shit if Flynn was out of practice.

Flynn tried not to tease him too much, tried not to push him too far, but it was hard not to when Wyatt responded so beautifully.

He pulled off when he heard Wyatt’s cries change in pitch, get dangerously high and needy, and then moved farther down, lapping at Wyatt’s entrance.

“Oh holy _fuck_ ,” Wyatt groaned, and Flynn could feel Wyatt starting to shake as he methodically worked him open with his tongue. “Flynn, Flynn, c’mon, Flynn, please, please oh fuck goddammit I want—I want—you—”

Flynn pulled back. “You got a condom?”

“I’m a music star I always have condoms,” Wyatt shot back. “Jess makes sure there’s a box in my bedside drawer because she’s the unholy child of a saint and a demon.”

“We’re in _my_ room, Logan.”

“How much you wanna bet there’s a box in your drawer too?”

Flynn checked, and sure enough, there was a box, along with some lube.

He was going to either kill Jess or send her flowers. Send her poisoned flowers?

Wyatt was practically shaking as Flynn got himself ready, and then slid a couple of fingers inside for good measure. “ _Garcia_.”

Oh, oh that did things to him. “Say that again.”

“Garcia—Garcia—fuck as many times as you want, whatever you want—Garcia—”

Flynn kissed Wyatt, deep and filthy, grabbing Wyatt’s wrists in his hands and pinning them above his head again with one hand as he continued to curl his fingers into Wyatt with the other. Wyatt practically sobbed as Flynn twisted his fingers, finding just the right spot. He wasn’t going to last much longer, poor pretty thing.

There was, however, one lingering doubt. “Are you sure? You haven’t—”

“I have,” Wyatt blurted out. “I had—the guy, the drummer before Rufus, Dave, he was, we—we had a thing, I’m good, I know—how it all works, how it feels. _Please_.”

Well. In that case.

Flynn did his best to slide in slowly, carefully, not wanting to hurt Wyatt or startle him. Rufus had been hired right before Flynn had, and that was two months ago now, and two months was nothing compared to three years but it could still be a lot the first time around again.

Wyatt sucked in huge gulps of air, and Flynn struggled to wait, to give him time. God he wanted so badly to let go and give Wyatt everything he had, but he wasn’t going to fuck this up. Not when he could feel his heart breaking open in his chest no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.

At last Wyatt nodded, and Flynn began to move. He strained upward, kissing Flynn’s neck, his jaw, any warm piece of skin that he could reach with his mouth. Flynn ducked his head and turned, catching Wyatt’s lips, parting them, diving in again, kissing him slick and hot as he thrust harder, faster, shifted, shifted again, found it—

Wyatt bit Flynn’s lip, shuddering. “S-sorry—”

“Shh, no, it’s okay.” Flynn hit that spot again on his next thrust and Wyatt just about screamed. “Mm, you make such pretty noises for me.”

Wyatt strained to break Flynn’s hold on his wrists. “I want—want you—gotta touch you—”

“I don’t know, have you been good enough to get to touch me?”

“I want to come so badly it’s like a fucking train and I haven’t,” Wyatt shot back.

“Okay, definitely spanking you next time.” Flynn let go and Wyatt immediately clawed at him, dug his nails in, slid his hands everywhere, kissing and biting and licking as Flynn braced himself and fucked and fucked and _fucked_ him.

He could feel Wyatt’s cries becoming desperate again, so he grabbed a handful of Wyatt’s hair and _yanked_ , pulling Wyatt’s head back, exposing Wyatt’s throat. “You can come, whenever you want,” he allowed, and then gave up any sense of rhythm and just fucked roughly into him, desperate, and bit Wyatt’s throat.

Wyatt swore viciously and came, staining them both, and oh, oh okay, so he had a throat kink, Flynn could work with that, Flynn could _definitely_ work with that, and he shoved himself inside one last time to that thought before he followed, blood roaring in his ears and his senses drenched in Wyatt.

Wyatt was sweetly clingy afterwards, and Flynn was tempted just to lie there and fall asleep holding him, but clean up was a thing. As he tied off the condom, dumped it, and took care of all the rest, Wyatt watched him with hooded, satisfied eyes.

“I don’t want to be an addict,” he said softly as Flynn climbed back into bed with him. He didn’t look Flynn in the eye, but he snuggled up to him.

Flynn wrapped a hand around the back of his head and stared up at the ceiling. “There are meetings for that, you know. We could find you a place, for in between tours.”

“They say when you’re drinking, you’re not really looking for the drink. You’re looking for something else.”

Flynn looked at him. “What were you looking for?”

“I’m not sure.” Wyatt’s gaze drew back up to Flynn’s face. “But I think it was you.”

Flynn was kissing him before he knew what he was thinking, crushing Wyatt to him, and oh, God, he was in so much trouble, he’d been in trouble for some time but now there was no getting out of it.

Wyatt was practically an octopus, clinging tightly as they settled into sleep, but Flynn didn’t mind. It had been forever since he’d shared a bed with someone but the warmth was lulling him right into sleep when Wyatt suddenly sat up, eyes wide.

“I’d rather be addicted to you!” Wyatt blurted out.

Flynn opened a bleary eye. “What?”

“That would’ve been so much smoother! I should’ve said I’d rather be addicted to you!”

Flynn wrapped an arm around Wyatt and tugged him closer. “It’s fine, I fucked you anyway, just go to sleep.”

Wyatt, miraculously, did.

 

* * *

 

Thank God for Rufus’s engineering degree.

“You went to MIT?” Flynn asked as Rufus led him backstage.

“Yup.”

“And this relates to your drum set… how?”

Rufus beckoned Flynn closer, then dropped to one knee and pointed along the edge of the largest drum, where the skin of the drum met the edge. “You see that?”

Flynn squinted. “Not really, actually.”

“It’s okay, you’re not a drummer. Someone’s taken this skin off and then put it back.” Rufus worked his fingers underneath, pulling the skin away—

Flynn grabbed Rufus and yanked him backward, even as Rufus said, “it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s not ticking down yet.”

There was a bomb inside the drum.

And suddenly, it all made sense.

When had the threats against Wyatt started? Right after Dave Baumgardner had quit and Rufus Carlin had been selected as a last-minute replacement. And what was Rufus? Black.

The assassin’s remarks about Wyatt weren’t a vague poke at Wyatt’s bisexuality. The assassin hadn’t guessed at that. They were poking at Wyatt for hiring and being friends with Rufus. That was the betrayal the assassin was talking about.

“Jesus Christ,” Flynn muttered. “Okay, I need you to distract people, keep them off the stage while I disarm this.”

“You sure? I could disarm it, I literally went to school for this kind of thing.”

Flynn sent him a look.

“Okay, so I didn’t go to school to disarm bombs, but you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, and I’ve been in combat for over a decade, so.”

Rufus rolled his eyes. “How about we do a crazy thing called work together?”

Flynn shook his head. “You’re a civilian. This is my job, not yours. I can’t ask you to put your life on the line like this.”

“And it’s my life to choose to put on the line or not. This’ll be a piece of cake, this wasn’t done by anyone with a college degree.”

Flynn wanted to point out that college degree or not, public libraries and the internet were a thing and you could learn a hell of a lot from both. Rufus, however, didn’t seem to be in a mood to be told no.

So he just helped quietly disable the bomb with him.

They broke up the various pieces and hid them in their arms, their jackets draped over them, as they walked back through the backstage area to the security office. “I’ll talk to the security team. You find Wyatt. Stay with him in his dressing room, don’t let anyone else in.”

Rufus nodded, and Flynn took the other bomb parts from him and dumped them on the head of security’s desk. “What the _fuck_ is this?”

One insane argument later, Flynn had gotten security to search the area, even though he wasn’t sure the culprit would still be around. On the one hand, flee the scene on the crime and watch from the safety of the television. On the other hand, nothing could beat the rush of being there in person to witness one’s handiwork up close.

Better safe than sorry.

Flynn also had them do a full sweep, as quietly and inconspicuously as possible. Their one shot, he figured, was getting the person to think they’d succeeded and then when Wyatt performed and he and Rufus (and everyone else) was safe, the culprit would show themselves or make some other mistake out of anger.

He did have to tell Wyatt, though. He couldn’t keep him in the dark.

Wyatt was playing cards with Rufus when Flynn entered. “You’re all good, thanks.”

Rufus nodded and left.

Wyatt swept the cards away and looked up. “What’s wrong? I know something’s up but Rufus wouldn’t tell me…”

Flynn tried not to reach out for him, he did, but then Wyatt was standing up and so close and he had made so many mistakes and been such an asshole but he was also a good person and he was trying and someone was angry at Wyatt for one of the few good things Wyatt had ever done and Flynn hated, _hated_ that Wyatt was being punished for it, and he ended up grabbing Wyatt by the shoulders.

“When you said before, that you’d play at a venue no matter what the risk, did you mean it?”

Wyatt’s hands closed over Flynn’s, squeezing tightly. “Yeah.” He nodded a few times. “Yeah, I did.”

“We found a bomb. I think I know why you’re being targeted—it’s because of your friendship with Rufus. Having him be your drummer.”

Wyatt’s eyes went wide.

“It’s okay, we disabled it, but I don’t think your attacker knows that. Can you go and do your concert, same as always? If the person is still here, they’ll have a reaction, and we might be able to catch them.”

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

Then he got up on his toes and kissed Flynn, a little hard, a little desperate. Flynn held onto him, kept him steady.

“Sorry, I just really wanted a drink right then,” Wyatt murmured against Flynn’s mouth.

“You know I’m still going to drag your ass to AA.”

“Okay but can you blow me for every meeting I go to?”

Flynn swatted him on the ass as Wyatt ducked out of the way, laughing. “Go do your concert you spoiled dickhead.”

 

* * *

 

If the attacker had a tantrum, they did so in private, far away from Flynn and security.

 

* * *

 

“I’m taking him to the lake house,” he told Jess. “I used to take my wife and kid there, it’s totally secure. We have time until the next concert, and my team needs time to find this person. We’re looking at an inside job, one of the roadies or something, since they were able to get that bomb onstage without alerting anyone.”

Wyatt grumbled the whole way. “If this is some rehab center…”

“Trust me, if it was a rehab center, you’d know it.”

The first day, Flynn had to admit, was a pain. Wyatt’s bratty side was coming out and not in the fun bedroom kind of way but in the _I’m a music star used to my Twitter followers and people just putting Diet Cokes in my hand the second I ask for them_ kind of way.

Flynn went fishing to clear his head, and when he came back, Wyatt had made dinner.

He just about dropped his rod in shock.

“Jess hates cooking,” Wyatt explained. “And growing up my dad made me do it, so. I figured it was a good way to say I’m sorry for being a dick.”

“It’s one of your better apologies,” Flynn acknowledged.

After that, it was better. Far better. Wyatt had been a country boy, tramping through the woods, and he even confessed he’d done a bit of moonshine running as a teenager, before his star rose too high and his every move was dictated by his team and he couldn’t get away.

“Gramps never would’ve stood for a team of people controlling me like that,” Wyatt admitted one night as they sat on the porch swing. “But my dad didn’t care so long as I stayed in line.”

He took Wyatt on hikes, on swims in the lake, taught him how to carve wood (no, that was not a euphemism).

He taught Wyatt a lot of other things too. Suffice to say they had to do laundry a lot.

About the end of the first week, Flynn found Wyatt writing in his notebook—but the lyrics, when he shared them, were different.

_My hands are shaking to touch you, have they won you over yet?_

_My face is blushing for you, has it won you over yet?_

“That’s new,” Flynn noted, handing Wyatt a cup of coffee—Wyatt liked hazelnut and whipped cream—as he read the lyrics over Wyatt’s shoulder where Wyatt was curled up on the porch swing.

Wyatt glanced up at him, then back down. “Yeah.”

“It’s actually kind of happy.”

“Don’t push your luck.” Wyatt paused. “Could I… could I use the phone? Just to call Jess?”

“You can’t tell her where you are, no identifying information.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

Flynn listened in as Wyatt dialed the number, just in case. “Hey, Jess? Hey, no, everything’s fine, I just…” Wyatt took a deep breath, grabbing Flynn’s hand.

Flynn squeezed back reassuringly.

“I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I never said that. Or I did but I always had some excuse to go with it, I always had something else to go with it and I never just straight up said that I was sorry. I was an asshole to you. You deserved better than me, you deserve so much better, and I hope that you get it, whether it’s alone or with someone else. I thought I knew best and I spit on all the hard work you did to try and make us better and to try and fix things. And I’m sorry. I really am.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and then Jess said something, and Wyatt’s eyes got wet. He nodded, as if he’d forgotten that Jess couldn’t see him, his grip on Flynn’s hand tight enough to hurt. “You were the best part of my life for a long time and I was scared to use you. I hope… I want us to be proper… y’know, real friends again. Not just tolerating each other.”

There was another pause. Wyatt curled into Flynn and Flynn let go of his hand so he could wrap his arm around Wyatt’s shoulders instead. “Yeah. I love you. Not the same way anymore but. Y’know. I do.”

Wyatt huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, okay, I will. You too.”

He hung up the phone. “What’d she say?”

Wyatt tucked his face into Flynn’s neck. “She said that was all she wanted. That she’d moved on, but she just wanted me to admit I screwed up. She wanted an apology. And she said she wanted us to be friends again, too.”

Flynn kissed the top of his head and they sat there together for a while as he pretended not to notice that his shirt was rapidly getting damp.

He did have to call Denise, to check up on progress. She told him that Rufus was also being carefully guarded and that she had every expectation to close in on the attacker soon, and that she’d phone him when the person had been apprehended.

“You sound happy,” she noted. “Relaxed.”

“There’s no need to sound so suspicious about it, Christopher.”

Jiya noted that he sounded happy too, when he took the risk and called her. “You’ve got a real love nest up there haven’t you?”

“We’re hiding out from a killer, Jiya.”

“And Iiiiiiiiiii,” Jiya sang, deliberately off-key, “will always, love yooooouuuuuuuu!”

“I’m hanging up now.”

Flynn didn’t know how to say it out loud, but he was starting to suspect that he really was.

Wyatt was soft here, relaxed, playing his guitar on the porch swing, smiling at Flynn over the littlest things. Flynn usually woke up to Wyatt singing, either on his guitar or in the shower, practicing his original songs, revising them, fine-tuning them.

He was the man he could’ve been.

Flynn almost didn’t want the suspect to get caught. Almost didn’t want to leave. Almost wanted to stay here forever, falling asleep with Wyatt in his arms, Wyatt’s head on his chest, watching the fireflies dancing in the night sky outside the window.

But he did get the call, after two weeks.

Reality never stayed away for long.

“I, uh, found a local AA meeting,” Wyatt said as Flynn loaded their bags into the car.

Flynn looked over at him, slamming the trunk shut. “Really.”

Wyatt nodded. “Really. I… I like who I am, with you. I want to be someone I like and I want to—I want to stop hating myself.”

“I don’t want you to do this just for me.”

“It’s not for you. I mean it is, but—it’s for me too, I promise.” Wyatt walked up to him, took two fistfuls of Flynn’s shit in his hands, and kissed him. “I promise.”

Call him a sucker, but he believed someone when they promised him something.

 

* * *

 

Jess shuffled the papers in front of her. “Okay. So. Everything’s set. One crazy ass fan set to be tried in court, one drummer safe, one country singer safe, one bodyguard set to be paid, AA and therapy appointments arranged and everyone’s signed NDAs, anything else?”

“Well I have to resign,” Flynn pointed out.

Wyatt was sitting in the chair next to him and swiveled to the side, looking lost and rather like he’d been sliced in the neck. “What? Why?”

“I can’t be with you and be your bodyguard,” Flynn pointed out. “It’s a complete conflict of interest, how am I supposed to be levelheaded at my job?”

Jess cleared her throat. “Right, should I get Baumgardner on the line and you and he can form a club?”

Flynn and Wyatt both glared at her. “What are you talking about?” He looked at Wyatt. “Are you saying you’re going to keep—Wyatt. Don’t tell me.”

“I have… I have expectations.” Wyatt’s voice was small. “It’s not just me, I have people—I’m—”

“If you say you’re not a person you’re a brand I swear to fucking God—”

“And that’s my cue.” Jess got up, tactfully left, and closed the door behind her.

Flynn stood up. “I can’t fucking believe this. After all that you’ve been through, you still want to lead a double life? This isn’t—I’m not some random string of hook ups, Wyatt, or whatever the hell Dave was, I thought—I’m not going to be some dirty little secret.”

Wyatt stood up as well. “I can’t just leave all of this…”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Flynn got up close, jabbing Wyatt in the chest. “You have good songs, Wyatt, here, songs from you, your actual goddamn heart, and they’re good, and they will carry you if you’ll just take the fucking chance and leap off the cliff. Because you can clean up your personal life all you want. Go to meetings and therapy and treat your friends right, and good for you, I hope you do that, but that won’t change what the public sees and it won’t change how they’ll hold you up as one of their Straight White Heroes. They will continue to believe in a lie of who you are and every day you will be tempted to turn into that because it’s what everyone says of you. And you deserve better.”

He grabbed his jacket. “And so do I.”

Flynn felt pretty damn good storming out in righteous indignation, but he did still have to actually be at Wyatt’s concert that night which, well, sort of took the whole sting out of his exit. He wanted to walk away and not come back, walk away and nurse his goddamn broken heart in peace and quiet. He hadn’t opened himself up again and let himself care about someone just to get shanked like this.

Everyone could tell that something was off that night. Only Rufus was brave enough to say something.

They were waiting in the dark wings for the show to start as the pre-show band did their thing.

“Hey.” Rufus’s voice was so quiet that Flynn had to strain to hear it. “Thanks, for looking out for me. I know I wasn’t your assignment.”

“Of course. Anytime.” Flynn paused. “Don’t break Jiya’s heart.”

“I think she’s liable to break my arm first.” Rufus cleared his throat. “Y’know, you’ve done a lot for Wyatt. Nobody would blame you if you felt like he hadn’t done enough for you in return. He’s getting better but he’s got a lot to learn.”

Flynn tried to make out Rufus’s expression, but his face was too obscured by the backstage darkness. “Did you overhear something?”

“Wyatt and I had a talk about an hour ago.”

“Ah.”

“He’s got it bad for you.”

“He’s got a funny way of showing it.”

Something odd came into Rufus’s voice then. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”

Flynn wanted to ask what that meant, but then Rufus was moving up onto the stage and his opportunity was lost.

Wyatt’s entrance was greeted with the usual applause. “Hey, hey, thanks for the enthusiasm, it’s always appreciated. Yo, Rufus, could you pass me that stool? Thanks.”

Stool? Wyatt didn’t sit down for this first portion of the concert.

“That’s Rufus, he’s my drummer, kinda became one of my best friends when I wasn’t looking. Sneaky bastard. Anyway.” Flynn could hear Wyatt tuning his guitar. “So here’s the thing. I’m going to do something a little different tonight. I’m going to, uh, actually sing what I want to sing.

“Last, oh, God I’m not doing that math, I’m old guys, okay? For the last however many years I’ve been singing what my dad told me to sing, and after he died I sang what my management team told me to sing, what my PR team told me to sing, to keep up that image. Even as I agreed less and less with what I was doing.

“So we’re starting out with some old classics. This one’s from _Dust Bowl Ballads_.”

Flynn’s jaw just about dropped.

Rufus joined him as Wyatt started _Folsom Prison Blues_. “You look like a frog just hopped into your mouth.”

“You knew about this?”

“Wyatt wanted to do something for you. I said you wouldn’t want him to do something just for you, you’d want him to do something for himself, you’d want him to take a stand and have courage. So.”

“Okay,” Wyatt said onstage. “This one actually is by me. I wrote it for my grandfather—yeah, he’s the one who really made me love music. I don’t talk about him much… but maybe I should start doing that, he deserves to be remembered. It’s called _Purgatory_. And I never sang it before even though I’ve been working on it for about ten years, because… because I knew my Gramps wouldn’t be all that proud with who I was being. But I think now I’m starting to become that person.”

“He’s hijacked his own goddamn concert,” Flynn noted. “Couldn’t he have just cancelled it?”

“What, and miss the opportunity to be a Grade A drama queen?” Rufus clapped Flynn on the shoulder. “Not a chance.”

Flynn grinned, feeling like an idiot but in the best kind of way.

The crowd wasn’t yelling and singing along like usual, but there weren’t any boos, either. When Rufus checked social media, apparently there were tweets exploding about how Wyatt Logan was making people cry—Flynn assumed that was a good thing. After all, everyone had a grandfather, right? Or some similar figure.

The applause at the end sounded perfunctory, and Flynn was sure that for however many people had liked the show, there were three who wanted their money back and were wondering what the fuck had just happened.

But that didn’t matter.

What mattered was Wyatt coming back stage, and seeing him, and marching right over and kissing Flynn with everything he had.

Flynn wrapped his arms around him and kissed him back.

 

* * *

 

**_Logan’s New Logic_ **

_By Kate Drummond_

There are boxes everywhere in the airy New England house I’m led into. “Sorry for the mess,” Logan tells me. “We’re still in the process of moving in.”

I’m sure the gigantic and energetic St. Bernard dog who’s campaigning for Logan’s attention doesn’t help matters. “Down, Denver,” Logan says, but the dog ignores him. “I’m a softie with her,” Wyatt confides, “and she knows it. Garcia is the disciplinarian.”

Garcia is Garcia Flynn, Wyatt Logan’s onetime bodyguard and new husband.

Speculation has been going around for months over the status of their relationship, and yes, I get to be the first person to confirm officially that they are married. Apparently the ceremony was quiet, officiated by a friend, and only had a dozen attendees.

“It was just for us, y’know?” Logan tells me, offering me some lemonade. “For us and the people we love. It wasn’t about making a statement or anything.”

Wyatt Logan used to be all about having his personal life be public. I mention the number of times he would end up in the tabloids over the years, especially during the tumultuous years married to his now ex-wife, Jessica.

“I was really lost,” Logan says. “I didn’t know who I wanted to be. And so I got angry and took it out on everyone. Jess was the only good thing I had in my life for a long time, and I kind of built my whole identity around her, which wasn’t healthy.”

I ask if he and Jess speak at all.

“Oh yeah, all the time. We’re better friends than we were a couple.” Logan laughs a little and lets Denver climb up onto the couch with him. I learn the dog was in fact a joint gift from Jess and Flynn.

When I ask where his husband is, Logan shrugs. “Out,” he says, and I know that’s all I’m getting from him on the subject. “He knows it’s a part of my life but he’s really private and so I try to keep the whole… publicity thing as separate from him, from us, as I can.”

I think it’s sweet, and I tell him so, pointing out how inspirational his relationship has been to people since Logan went public with it a month after his infamous self-hijack of his concert.

Logan gets a blush on his face and stars in his eyes when he talks about his husband. “He saved me,” he says bluntly. “And not in that stupid cliché way where ‘oh if you love someone hard enough you can change them’. I mean, he convinced me to get the help that I needed. I was really in a tailspin and about to crash into rock bottom.”

I mention that sounds similar to one of the lyrics from a song in his newest album. I ask if some of the songs are about his husband. Logan nods, adding, “they’re about the things I struggled with and how I came out the other side, and he’s a part of that, so part of the songs are about him.”

We can all agree, though, that there are some songs that are a little more pointed than others. _Snake Eyes and Soft Hands_ is most definitely about Flynn, but there are other songs that if you know anything about Logan’s history will be just as clear in their meaning. There’s one with the lyrics, _the avalanche of anger I feel at you will bury you_ , and Logan is honest about that one referring to his father.

“This album is very personal and I’m not ashamed of that. I know some artists caution you not to get too personal. I mean look at Taylor Swift, her heart’s on the page for everyone to judge, same with Adele. But I spent so many years singing and promoting songs that weren’t about me or my story at all. Maybe in the future I’ll get more private again, more abstract, but right now I’m course correcting.”

We talk all the time in the industry about someone doing a one eighty, but we so rarely truly see a turnaround like Logan’s. A darling of the country music world, he performed at Republican conventions and other tentpole gatherings of the conservative populace, only to come out last year as against a lot of the beliefs of his biggest fans.

“I kind of feel like everyone focused on the bi thing,” Logan admits with a self-deprecating laugh, petting Denver. “But that was almost an afterthought compared to everything else I was taking a stand for or a stand against.”

Logan has worked hard on his latest album and says that if the politics help it to sell, then good. “Country music was originally about politics,” he says. “The politics of the people, and I really do mean the people. Not the rich white racist people who claim to make up the real backbone of our country. Country music was rebellious and it was about the poor and the downtrodden, and the lyrics were often pretty angry. I mean look at Johnny Cash, he wrote a whole song about the awful prison system.”

“You weren’t vocal about politics before,” I point out.

“No, but I knew what kind of fans I had, I knew the messages that people were taking from my music, and I knew what statements I was letting people make for me. If I perform at a pro-life rally, that’s political, even if I only sing songs about cornfields. Now I’m more conscious of my responsibility. As a white man, as a public figure, and as a member of the upper class.”

Denver starts whining, so Logan asks if we can continue this while he walks her. I agree readily—it’s a lovely neighborhood and Denver’s a sweet dog.

When we get back to the house, we’re not alone. I’ve seen Garcia Flynn in a few pictures but meeting him up close is a whole new experience. For one thing, he’s devastatingly handsome. For another, he’s very intimidating.

The way the two men greet each other, however, speaks volumes. For you tinhat bloggers claiming Logan’s just doing this to improve his liberal, left-wing image—I hate to disappoint you but these two men are deeply and genuinely in love with each other.

Flynn shakes my hand warmly, but I can tell by his pointed questions that I’m being interviewed by him as much as I’m interviewing Logan.

Apparently I pass muster, because I’m invited by Flynn to sit down and continue my interview. He and Logan sit together, cuddling almost, and I gotta tell you this thirty-something single woman got a little bit envious.

“Your husband says you’re very private,” I tell him. “Is there anything you’d like to go on record to say?”

Flynn thinks for a moment. Then he says, “I want the public to know how proud I am. When I met Wyatt, he wasn’t the kind of guy I’d even say two words to. Now he’s the most important person in my life. And that wasn’t because I changed my mind. It was because he really took stock of himself and grew as a person.”

Finally, before I go, I’m treated to a look at Logan’s home studio, where he sings a demo of a new song for me. It’s still being revised so I can’t share it with you, but I will say, I teared up just a little.

One last question before I go: there is a song on Logan’s album that has caused quite a lot of speculation. While the album’s songs are all hits, with four going platinum, one has sort of been struggling more on the charts, and that’s _Baby Girl._

The fact that Logan is supposedly happily in a relationship with a man has made people question if it’s about a woman, and has also led to speculation that it references a child that Logan has, with people going so far as to ask his ex-wife if they had a secret child.

Logan laughs. “Yeah, uh, that song’s actually about Denver. It’s about our dog.”

Well, I can’t think of any statement that better gets to the heart of who Wyatt Logan has become.


End file.
